


power nap

by Darkfromday



Series: The Last Kings of Lucis [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, I slept instead of writing this, happy international napping day!, mostly peaceful AU, uncle!ardyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:32:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday
Summary: 11-year-old Noctis skips out on a physical therapy meeting.





	power nap

**Author's Note:**

> The moment I found out today was National Napping Day in the U.S., I knew I had to write about Noct.
> 
> Then I ended up actually taking a nap. Truly, the prince's power is limitless.

"Your Highness! Your Highness, please come back!"

Noctis' bad knee throbs, but he doesn't turn around—he doesn't return to the stupid physical therapist or the stupid palace clinic. No, he keeps hobbling away, getting around the nearest corner as fast as possible before the woman's shouts draw the Crownsguard.

In the end he barely makes it.

_Ow, ow, ow._

Noct's leg trembles, but he draws on all his strength from prior sessions to stay on his feet. He knows the second his knees buckle it's over—he'll be stuck wherever he falls. Poor Iggy will lose his mind if he finds Noct passed out in a corridor again.

 _I'm still not going back,_ he thinks, clenching his small fists. _I won't. I won't!_

This is the third week in a row where he's been stuck by himself in that therapy room, crying out every time his knee and leg were guided in a direction the Marilith had made painful. His father promised he would be there for every session, to support Noct and cheer him on as he learned to walk and run again without pain.  _No council meeting will keep me from ensuring my own son is healing comfortably_ , he'd told Noct three years ago, as he sat by his bed one evening. King or not, Regis had  _promised_ that anything that needed a royal once-over would be handled by Noct's distant uncle.

And now instead of holding Noct's hand as he walked across the room, his dad was sitting in a meeting about vegetable imports from Niflheim.

 _Vegetable_ imports.

From  _Niflheim_.

"Your Highness! Prince Noctis!"

Noctis bites his lip, and looks anxiously down both ends of the hallway he's stuck in now. He won't go back to that room without a fight (which would be a loss for him the moment they called Gladio in, but _still_ ), but he's running out of options. He can either hobble down the rest of this hallway, or burst in on his father's meeting in the throne room and embarrass them both,  _or_...

His eyes light on a particular dark wood door a few steps away.

_I can hide in there!_

He limps over before he can change his mind. No one has any meetings in this room; it's not the first time Noct has snuck away somewhere quiet to rest his leg and his brain. This specific room is one of his favorite spots to not be the Crown Prince in.

It takes a whole minute for him to huff and puff and push the door open, hobble through it, and then push it closed behind him. Noctis squeezes his eyes shut at a new jab of pain from his knee, alternates between biting his lip and breathing out slowly.

"Well, well. What have we here?"

Ice crawls down Noct's back—he has to force himself to open his eyes and not tremble. Sometime between the time he hid from Iggy in here two weeks ago and right now, Ardyn Lucis Caelum has moved in.

 

Noctis is young, but he's not stupid.

Regis calls Ardyn his 'distant' uncle like it's a joke, one his little boy's not supposed to get. Noct knows he really is family because he's seen the fancy weapons the older man can summon with a wiggle of his fingers and a red sparkle from his Armiger, but Ardyn is not Regis' brother, or Regis' dad's brother, or Regis' dad's  _dad's_ brother, or...

Yeah, anyway.

What's important is that Ardyn doesn't seem to... like him. At all. Sure, he was there to bless Noctis' birth like the stories say, and Noct has a hazy memory of sleeping in Ardyn's lap as a toddler and drooling all over his paperwork. But once he turned five (or maybe six?), his 'distant' uncle started living up to his nickname. If Noct saw him at all, he was given a dismissive nod, or a calculating look he couldn't ever understand.

It shouldn't hurt. Noctis barely knows his uncle anyway, and it's not like the guy's not _busy_ , what with helping Regis hold the wards around Insomnia and pouring over military documents with Clarus and Cor. He's super powerful and super important. Maybe when Noct is older and has more royal responsibilities, he'll see Ardyn more.

_Maybe._

It shouldn't hurt, but it does.

 _Why doesn't Uncle Ardyn like me?_   he remembers asking his father once. He was seven, just beginning to understand the ramifications of being the son of a single-dad and an ever-busy king in one; it seemed unconscionable at the time that his uncle wouldn't have time for him either.

_Doesn't like you? Ah, Noctis, that isn't so. I know you worry, but I assure you—there is no Lucis Caelum your uncle holds higher regard for._

Whatever that meant, Noct still went out of his way these days to return the favor: he ate, slept, played, and licked his wounds anywhere Ardyn Lucis Caelum was not.

...Until today, where he messed up.

"Ah, Noctis. Have you had your fill of physical therapy for today?"

Noct scrambles to stay on his feet, free his lower lip and find the handle for the door behind his back at the same time. "I—I'm sorry, Uncle Ardyn. I didn't know you were using this room. I'll just—"

"Halt, dear boy. I did not dismiss you."

Noctis obeys, but keeps his head half-lowered in the bow he's been taught to dismiss himself in the presence of his betters.

Ardyn had been lounging on Noct's favorite red chaise longue. Now he unfurls from it like a couerl, stands, and looks his newest nephew over with that same gaze that makes Noct feel like one of those bugs his maidservants glare hard at before sweeping it into the dustbin.

"You are in pain," he observes.

"I—"

"Hush. Nothing to be gained in hiding it, especially not from me. I only meant—it is clear you left your session early. Why do that only to come here?"

Noctis opens his mouth to answer promptly, but his face flushes both with renewed pain and shame.  _Even when I don't mean to I disappoint him._ But he still has no desire to go back and listen to that therapist say honeyed words she doesn't mean, coaxing him along until her patience frays and she inevitably snaps at his sluggish progress.

"I... I couldn't stay in there by myself anymore," he finally whispers.

He waits—for what, he's unsure. Ardyn has never physically hurt him, or even said anything unkind; he speaks volumes with tone over any specific words. But he can't be pleased that the Prince would rather risk re-igniting his old injury in full than go through a few more years of painful sessions alone. Even his dad—

"Well, come on then."

"Huh?" Noct mumbles. He blinks, and chances a glance up. Ardyn has returned to the chaise, though he appears to be... making room?

"Silly boy," the senior Lucis Caelum chides, but with no real heat behind it. "You will aggravate that leg even more by remaining on it. The horrendous rain outside is surely not helping matters either. If you meant to come in here and rest, then do so. But be quick about it."

Noctis gawks.  _What is... this is... Uncle Ardyn_ never _offers to keep me company..._

"Does the definition of 'quick' differ for princes?"

"Sorry!" the boy gasps, and hobbles over as quickly and carefully as possible to join his uncle. The latter helps him sit down once he's close enough—and the amount of care Ardyn takes in making sure Noct's injury doesn't flare up too badly has his eyes stinging.

"How did you know the rain makes my leg worse?" he asks, lying down and staring up at his uncle's piercing golden eyes.

"My dear Noctis." Ardyn chuckles darkly, laying one hand in his nephew's hair and gesturing at his own legs with the other. "Do you think you're the only one in the family with a bad leg? On the contrary, you're continuing a noble tradition."

It hurts to laugh, but Noct manages a little one. Something in him feels warm. Maybe because his leg is starting to hurt less for some reason. Maybe because this is the closest he's been to his uncle in years, and this is the longest and mildest conversation they've ever had.

"Enough of that giggling.  _Rest_."

Noct hastily closes his eyes.

 

"Ardyn?! Ardyn!"

Regis Lucis Caelum bursts into the unused study room, face flushed with effort and panic. His golden knee brace is slightly off-center: a sure sign that he's been darting up and down the halls of the Citadel as quickly as he can, with little care for how much his leg can take today.

"Ardyn, I need your aid. Noctis has gone missing. He was meant to be—"

The king stops speaking abruptly, though his fear runs wild for a few more seconds before his brain catches up to what he's seeing.

Ardyn Lucis Caelum is half-dozing on a chaise longue that's as red as his hair. One of his large arms rests comfortably on the missing prince's back, idly rubbing back and forth. Noctis himself is sound asleep, curled into his uncle's chest with his bad leg carefully resting on the man's infamous long coat.

It is such an unlikely picture that Regis' brain tells him it can't be real.

"Regis, why are you making such a racket...?" The immortal Lucis Caelum grants his king an overexaggerated yawn for his troubles. "Some of us are trying to  _sleep_."

"What... how...?"

"Is this about Noctis?" Ardyn makes a show of looking down at the little king-to-be and pushing some hair out of his face. "As you can see, he is alive and well. Just needed a power nap."

"He should be in therapy," Regis begins hesitantly.

"He'll just limp out of it again. He will not stay there without someone to support him."

The words are as pointed as any he directs at Noctis. The king winces appropriately—he is no stranger, now, to the growing guilt of missing time with his son, but watching Noct suffer physically because of that missing time is a potent wound.

"I did make Noct a promise," he eventually says. "And I have done my best to live by my word with him. It will be difficult to move my schedule about, and the Council will not be happy, but—"

"Don't bother," Ardyn interrupts. "Send Noctis' physical therapy schedule to my little phone. I'll accompany him."

Regis' eyes soften.

"Oh, no. Don't give me that look. This changes nothing in my plans."

"Ardyn..."

"Hush, Majesty! You'll wake him before it's time."

"Time for what...?" Regis asks, before his face lights up once he has stepped closer. "Ardyn. Are you  _partially healing_ Noct's leg?"

"What? No, that's ridiculous. I lost that kind of power five generations ago. And even if I still _had_ it..."

Ardyn blathers on, blustering and weaving fancy excuses for his atypical behavior out of nothing. It's all meant to be a clever distraction, but Regis still notices how his hand doesn't stray too far from Noct's hand or his back.

 _Hmm. Ridiculous, indeed_.


End file.
